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Considering that we only have a fixed amount of limited choices for (larger) caliber guns and all turrets of a specified caliber have the same size. Would it perhaps be possible to have a system in the main gun section that ties the specific turret together with a matching barbette? Atm we only have a couple of barbette choices, which esthetically do not match with certain calibers very well. I feel that in most cases just resizing the barbette designs already in the game would work well to quickly implement such a chance.

Hi there.
I've been playing the game recently and have been enjoying it thoroughly, as I am a naval history nut, this is extremely interesting for me. I love the idea of building your own ships and taking the best ideas forward that have already been proven in real life. The combat I also enjoy, and is only bound to get better.
However I have a couple problems with the shipbuilder that does strictly prohibit design choices and ideas. The main ones being anchor points for superstructures and barbettes and the turret/barbette diameter. First I will start with superstructure anchor points. I know this has been covered before by many others but I will just quickly reiterate it again, the superstructure problem can be simply fixed by increasing the amount of anchor points along the length of the hull, where the hull can reasonably sustain it, like a line up the centre between two cut off points. This will enable players to play around with designs from Nelson and G3 class to the Nurnberg cruiser layout. For example:
Barbette position would act a little different, kind of...
First off barbettes will be split into two categories, centreline and side mounted. Just like the gun turrets. The centreline barbettes will have essentially an increased amount of anchor points like in the picture above, but the points will extend all the way to where gun turrets are limited to. These barbettes when, holding down the left ctrl button, should also be able to do what gun turrets can do and be fine tuned in their place meant along the centre of the ship.
Side mounted barbettes will be able to be placed like side mounted gun turrets, however their max diameter will only be able to hold upto 6 Inch sized gun turrets (as pointed out by @RAMJB any larger gun diameter the AI may overly take advantage of).
Now onto the next problem regarding barbettes. Diameter size relative to gun caliber and number.
See what I mean? These gun turrets are all equipped with the same 14 inch weapon. However they all have the same barbette diameter, which is unrealistic and annoying for ship building. The point of choosing a smaller number of guns in a turret is to reduce barbette diameter to help save weight, and to also keep the ships center of gravity lower down (increasing stability). This can be seen on the King George V class, and the conte di cavour class:
Another problem is the limited size options for barbettes, just being three, which leads to designs like this:
Both turrets are equipped with 15 inch guns. However for a 15 inch gun to be superfiring at the moment, the only barbette that can take that is the largest option, which is directly derived from yamato's triple 18 turrets, therefore being way bigger than needed for a twin 15 inch turret, (barbettes were designed to only be as big as they needed to be and nothing more, as seen in the real pictures).
Therefore I suggest barbette size should be based on not only the caliber of guns but also the number of guns in a turret. The ratio can be worked out by looking into historical conversion plans. The north carolina class battleship was actually originally planned to be equipped with 3 quadruple 14 inch gun turrets due to the second london naval treaty of 1935. However they were upgunned to triple 16 inch turrets after Japan didn't sign the treaty. The same is said for Japanese heavy cruisers of the mogami class, going from triple 6 inch turrets to twin 8 inch turrets. Therefore we can assume roughly that for an increase in gun size for every 2 inches leads to one less gun in the turret for the same barbette size, eg:
This will mean players can have appropriately size barbettes for the equivalent gun size and number of guns in each turret.
Also the ability to stack centerline barbettes upto triple 6 Inch gun turret size would also be allowed, so ships like the USS Atlanta and the secondaries on Yamato can be created. This stacking ability has a limit of 6 Inch weapons, as although the barbette can fit dual 8 inch guns, it (from my knowledge) has never been done historically, so therefore will not be allowed. Another thing to note is that you cannot stack side mounted barbettes, this is only a feature of lighter centerline barbettes.
Final main thing to cover would be the ability to see the barbette armour in the ship builder (and overall armor of the ship). As well as the ability to determine the barbette armour itself both above and behind the main armour belt. It would look similar to the damage model we see in combat:
Another idea that popped up while making WW1 style ships was trying to make it easier to replicate the echelon layout. When a side mounted large caliber turret is placed, individually (without the auto mirror option), a line of anchor points would appear on the other side of the ship at the exact same distance as the turret from the center of the ship but mirrored, plus there would be two highlighted options, one being the exact mirror and the second being a reflection from the center of mass. This should have no lateral instability (assuming you are placing the same gun turret), eg:
This suggestion also uses left ctrl to finetune the position of the turret, but you are locked into moving your turret only lengthways up and down the ship to make sure you keep the stability. If you want to widen your echelon layout, you have to move the original turret and replace the second one.
I hope you have enjoyed reading my proposal and vote on the polls.
Cheers.